I remember playing imaginary games in year 7. When other people were trying to look cool and stand around eating lunch, me and my friend were in our Alice and Wonderland universe. I thought, why isn’t everyone doing this? Being cool is boring!
Have you ever come out of a theatre and got that tingly feeling that makes you want to do something- jump, scream, cry maybe? When I see a good piece of theatre I am connected to my basic childhood instincts and reactions, and that can be a very primal experience. The same can go for making theatre. I am predominantly a deviser and trained in European Theatre Arts. One of my favourite things to do on that course as a way of creating content was ‘le jeu’, to play. I think playing is an underrated art- the joyous and often silly act of playing can be rebellious, breaking rules and creating new ones. Isn’t this just what we do on stage? We create an imagined space and invite others into a make believe set of rules that, if tapped into by audience and performer, can create something totally unique. Sharing our playing with others is really vital, otherwise what’s the point? To see someone onstage wrapped up in their own ideas and own sense of reality is often only interesting if we understand something about them- we don’t want to alienate people from the game otherwise they might not get it.
I remember playing imaginary games in year 7. When other people were trying to look cool and stand around eating lunch, me and my friend were in our Alice and Wonderland universe. I thought, why isn’t everyone doing this? Being cool is boring!
Playing can be as simple as using one tennis ball and seeing how many different ways it can be used. I love playing ‘find the game’, which is where the game is in a group's hands and constantly switches depending on where it goes. The joy in this is that there is no leader- all the group members are just as responsible for the game and the game must be constantly sought and found- the sky’s the limit!
Silent play can be glorious. There is something interesting in stripping back words, the act of stopping trying to be clever in theatre and just doing. In my own practice I often begin with silence to generate material. Jacques Lecoq, famous clown teacher said, in The Moving Body, ‘Be quiet, play, and theatre will be born!’. This is true- it is often the moments without words that are the most impactful. Lecoq thought that mime was an essential part of understanding the world- and that children are prime examples of this in their playful approach to life, miming things in order to both play and understand.
John Wright wrote ‘If the work is playful it becomes pleasurable, and when you’re enjoying yourself you get bolder and take more risks’ (Why is that so funny?) This takes me right back to my untouchable, unbullyable innocent 12 year old self in year 7, where words could not hurt me because I had a far better universe to immerse myself in than being caught up in gossip- play. In the creation process of my theatre company's recent show, Experiment Human, we found ourselves getting caught up in the unhelpful spirals of ‘but what is the audience going to think of this bit?’ about some particularly bizarre and out the box sequences. As soon as the clown (or performer) gets self conscious, something is lost as it becomes about the self consciousness instead of the initial intention of playing. It is so easy for comedy to turn into tragedy which is exactly what happened to us with live moments on stage where we wanted something from the audience but they gave us something different and unexpected. To our surprise though, comedy turned-tragedy can swing back to comedy in one delicious moment and our flops became something we enjoyed and became bolder in future performances due to this. The live improvised moments were the most fun because they had scope for new forms of playfulness each time. There is also a certain respect and delight from the audience when they are in on the joke and know that we are improvising in the moment. Something wonderful about being in the shit.
Baby World is on as part of a Big Bang scratch night
Sun 30 March
Tickets £8 - £12
